Day: January 5, 2022

The Government has proposed a package of fiscal solutions worth 291 trillion VND (nearly 12.8 billion USD) in total to support socio-economic recovery and development.

The proposal was submitted to the 15th National Assembly (NA) at the first extraordinary session opened on January 4.

In this package, the Government plans to increase overspending by 240 trillion VND in 2022 and 2023 to provide direct aid from the State budget, including 64 trillion VND in tax, fee, and charge reduction; and spending directly from the budget by 176 trillion VND.

It will allocate about 6.6 trillion VND from the central budget as house rent assistance for workers, cut 6 trillion VND in expenses for businesses, and raise the limit of Government-guaranteed bond issuance by a maximum of 38.4 trillion VND for the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies to offer concessional loans helping with job provision.

In the package of monetary solutions, the Government suggested lending interest rates be cut by at least 0.5 – 1 percent in two years, aside from other policies supporting enterprises.

Fiscal, monetary solutions proposed to aid socio-economic recovery hinh anh 2

A plenum of the 15th NA’s extraordinary session (Photo: VNA)

Talking at group discussions, most of legislators noted these are supplementary policies which have not been included in the fiscal and monetary measures approved in the socio-economic development, financial, public borrowing and debt repayment, and public investment plans for 2021 – 2025, and that they met demand in reality amid severe impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They added the fiscal and monetary packages will act as a stimulus helping the economy surmount difficulties soon, avoid the undermining of growth drivers in the long term, and catch up with the world’s economic recovery process.

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is an NA deputy of Ho Chi Minh City, said the fiscal package of Vietnam is small compared to those of other countries, but it is at the minimum necessary level.

He held that resources should be prioritised for health care since the grassroots health care system is still weak. Besides, it is necessary to enhance enterprises’ and investors’ trust through frequent dialogue and settlement of obstacles facing them.

NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, a deputy of Hai Phong city, said the proposed fiscal and monetary policies were designed to stimulate both supply and demand, with a large enough scale and a long enough duration, which can be effective for the economy.

However, as they are supplementary policies, the parliament needs to discuss thoroughly and the Government should seriously consider the issues pointed out by the verification agencies and NA deputies so as to ensure maximum effectiveness. In addition, swift and efficient implementation is needed as there are only two years for the urgent aid packages to be carried out, according to him.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The southern province of Binh Duong, one of the localities hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, will make great efforts to achieve targets set for 2021-2025, with annual economic growth set at 8.5 percent.

Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Vo Van Minh told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) that the locality’s per capita income is projected at 9,400 USD each year by 2025.

Under the 2022 socio-economic development plan, Binh Duong’s Gross Regional Domestic Products (GRDP) is expected to increase from 8-8.3 percent from 2021, and per capita income is projected at around 169.8 million VND per year.

Minh said the locality will focus on measures to step up industrial and service sectors, reform the growth model, selectively attract investments and utilise science-technology to raise productivity.

The scientific, technological, industrial zone is one of the key projects in Binh Duong to boost industrial production, he said, adding that in the years to come, the province will enhance regional transport connectivity to serve businesses and investors.

According to the official, Binh Duong will continue with efforts in COVID-19 prevention and control, while working hard to complete socio-economic targets set for this year.

Last year, the locality’s GRDP rose 2.62 percent and its export revenue reached 31.5 billion USD, up 13.5 percent; and its import, 24.7 billion USD, up 14.7 percent.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam’s industrial production recorded an increase of 4.82 percent in added value compared to 2020, according to figures from the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Notably, the processing and manufacturing field saw a rise of 6.37 percent in added value, contributing 1.61 percent to the overall growth of the economy.

The production index in 2021 of several key industries also surged against 2020, such as metal production up 22.1 percent; motor vehicle production 10.2 percent; electronic, computer, and optical products 9.6 percent; and hard and ion coal mining 9 percent.

Regarding FDI attraction in the year, the processing and manufacturing sector continued to lead with registered FDI capital totaling 7.25 billion USD, accounting for 47.6 percent of the total newly-registered capital.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), many businesses have quickly regained their growth momentum after the Government issued Resolution No. 128/NQ-CP on safely and flexibly adapting to and effectively controlling the pandemic.

Economic experts said that the results achieved in 2021 create an important premise for industrial production to achieve strongger development, thus serving as a main contributor to the economic growth.

The MoIT will continue to focus on removing difficulties facing important industrial projects, and maximizing its support for factories in maintaining and recovering their production.

The industry and trade sector will also effectively implement measures of the Government in order to help businesses recover financial and labour resources serving their production.

Attention will also be paid to speeding up industry restructuring in the direction of increasing the proportion of processing and manufacturing industries and reducing the proportion of contracting and assembling for industrial products manufactured in Vietnam, gradually removing difficulties for enterprises to increase competitiveness and step by step establishing technical barriers for imports to support and raise the local content of domestic products .

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Market capitalisation on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) rose more than 42 percent year-on-year to 5.8 quadrillion VND (254.83 billion USD) by the end of 2021, accounting for 92.77 percent of the previous year’s GDP.

In 2020, the market capitalisation on HOSE stood at 4.08 quadrillion VND, or 67.59 percent of 2019’s GDP, the southern bourse reported.

Ending the last session of December, the benchmark VN-Index reached 1,498.28 points, a month-on-month increase of 1.34 percent and a year-on-year rise of 35.73 percent. VNAllshare topped 1,561.33 points, up 1.85 percent month-on-month and 51.23 percent year-on-year.

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index edged down 0.12 percent compared to the previous month to close at 1,535.71 points; however, the figure was 43.42 percent higher than that recorded at the beginning of last year.

Industrial stocks posted the highest growth with VNIND Index gaining 9.79 percent year-on-year. It was followed by shares of the utilities sector (VNUTI Index), up 6.31 percent; and those of the consumer staples sector (UNCONS) rising 3.93 percent.

The stock market liquidity last month set a record high in the December 23 session, with more than 1.32 billion shares traded for over 45.37 trillion VND in total.

During 2021, the HOSE saw 184.32 billion stocks traded for total of over 5.39 quadrillion VND, up 118.68 percent and 244.51 percent, respectively, against 2020. An average of 737.29 million shares, worth nearly 21.6 trillion VND per session, were traded on the bourse per session.

As of the end of last year, 533 securities codes had been listed on HOSE, including 404 stocks, three close-end fund certificates, eight exchange-traded funds (ETF), 113 covered warrants (CW), and five bonds. The number of shares listed on the bourse exceeded 120.5 billion.

As many as 46 HOSE-listed companies had market capitalisation reaching over 1 billion USD and three hitting over 10 billion USD, namely VinGroup (VIC), Vietcombank (VCB) and Vinhomes (VHM).

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Phu Quoc island city in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang is expected to become a national tourism centre in the coming time as investors deploy their projects here, said Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Huynh Quang Hung.

The island city welcomed 10,000 visitors, including over 2,000 foreigners in the first three days of 2022.

Particularly, in the last two days of 2021, as many as 50 Lao tourists selected Phu Quoc as a destination for welcoming the New Year 2022.

Hung said Phu Quoc was recognised as a tier-2 city by the National Assembly Standing Committee last year, this is a premise for the locality to strongly promote tourism development.

Phu Quoc is determined not only as a high-end resort tourism centre, but also as a financial hub and a centre of aviation and maritime trade in the region, he noted.

This will help Kien Giang province in general and Phu Quoc in particular attract more domestic and foreign investment, Hung affirmed.

Known as “Pearl Island”, Phu Quoc is the largest island in Vietnam and also the largest of the 22 making up the group of Phu Quoc islands.

In the beginning of 2022, Phu Quoc lured 350 investment projects worth 17 billion USD, including many projects developing high-class tourism and entertainment areas.

According to the official, the city plans to receive over 4,000 international visitors by the end of January.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

More than 2.96 million people are benefiting from a rise of 7.4 percent in monthly pension, social insurance allowances and monthly subsidy as from January compared to December 2021, equivalent to 1.05 trillion VND (46.13 million USD), according to the Vietnam Social Security (VSS).

The beneficiaries include retirees; incumbent cadres of communal-level administrations; and people receiving monthly allowances for loss of working capacity.

Of the total, the State budget will pay over 257.3 billion VND (11.3 million USD) worth of the increased amount for about 904,900 people who are receiving pensions and allowances from the State budget, while the social security fund will shoulder 794.9 billion VND (34.92 million USD) in added payment.

The raise aims to ensure social welfare, especially for the retired and disadvantaged people amid adverse impacts of COVID-19.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Traffic safety was improved considerably nationwide in 2021 with sharp declines recorded in the number of accidents, deaths and injuries, reported the National Committee for Traffic Safety (NCTS).

NCTS Vice Chairman Khuat Viet Hung said, as of December 14, 2021, 11,495 traffic accidents had occurred across the country, killing 5,799 people and injuring 8,018 others, down 23.32 percent, 15.55 percent, and 28.16 percent year-on-year, respectively.

According to the NCTS, the top causes of the accidents were speeding, driving in the wrong lane, changing lanes or direction without signaling, and drink driving.

As many as 55 provinces and centrally-run cities recorded a strong decrease in the number of fatalities due to traffic accidents compared to 2020. Notably, An Giang and Son La provinces reported a decrease of over 40 percent.

However, four provinces still reported an increase in the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents, including Kon Tum, Quang Tri, Kien Giang, and Thai Binh.

Hung attributed the positive results in traffic safety to the decrease of traffic activities due to regulations on social distancing nationwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the number of vehicles participating in traffic is much lower than the time before the pandemic broke out.

Police forces effectively patrolled, controlled and handled violations related to traffic order and safety. Attention has been also paid to educating and raising public awareness of the law on traffic order and safety, he added.

As of December 14, traffic police had handled 2.88 million violation cases, giving out fines of over 2.8 trillion VND (123 million USD), revoking 248,6000 driving licences and sequestering 460,000 vehicles.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A ceremony was held on January 5 in Hanoi to hand over 100,000 USD from the Vietnamese Government and people to support bereaved families of tornadoes that occurred in Kentucky, the US, last December.

On December 12, 2021, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent messages of condolences to US President Joe Biden over the losses of human lives and property caused by the natural disaster.

Addressing the event, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung believed that under the leadership of President Biden, the US government and people will soon surmount consequences of the disaster in Kentucky.

He underlined friendship, cooperation and mutual support between the governments and people of Vietnam and the US to overcome difficulties, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the recent past.

For her part, Chargé d’Affaires at the US Embassy in Vietnam Marie Damour thanked the Vietnamese Government and people for their timely support, voicing a hope that the sound bilateral relations, including cooperation between the countries’ Red Cross organisations, will continue to flourish.

Source: Vietnam News Agency